Sky’s the limit

You can do anything you want when setting out to market your business and communicate with the people you hope to help. You have so many tools to choose from to help raise awareness of your services or cause, build relationships, spark conversations – whatever it is you’re working to share with the world – you get to decide the who, what, when, how.

The sky’s the limit!

But that doesn’t mean you have to be on every cloud.

There are as many platforms available as there are clouds in the sky (pretty sure there are more in the clouds in the sky – but I like how it sounds).

Start small. Keep it simple. Be selective.

As you set out, try to keep in mind that growing your online presence takes time. It takes work. It takes planning. It takes flexibility. It takes testing. It takes experimenting. It takes trying things out. It takes being willing to create knowing all of your hard work on a post may not reach a single person – yet you create anyway.

In order to be successful – you need to feel successful. If you try to do too much, try to be present on too many platforms all at once (especially without a plan) – you’re setting yourself (and your content marketing efforts) up for failure. You’re inviting frustration.

Start by planning. Ask yourself what your goals are and who you hope to reach. Ask yourself how much time you have to devote to your content marketing efforts each week. Decide which social media platforms you want to focus on – this is important – be selective and really think about where your ideal clients spend their time.

Not sure who your ideal clients are? Back up.

Develop a buyer persona (fancy talk for creating an imaginary person – so we’ll just go with imaginary person from here on). Add details. What’s his/her name? What does he/she do for a living? Family? Hobbies? Interests? What keeps this person up at night? What needs does she/have?

Now that you’ve developed your imaginary person – start brainstorming topics that would be useful, informative, valuable and entertaining. As you brainstorm, keep in the mind the difference between copy and content. In a nutshell, copy is focused on selling your product or service while content’s purpose is to be useful, educational, entertaining.

What questions can you answer? What helpful tips can you provide? What’s new in your industry? What could you write about that would a) prove your expertise and b) enable him/her to make informed decisions and do on his/her own what he/she could have hired you to do? People relate to people: what happens behind the scenes at your office? Who are the individuals who contribute to your company’s success and the services or product you provide? What do you do to benefit your community?

With your imaginary person and topics on paper, we’re back to choosing platforms – less is more. Better to consistently post and participate on a select few than to spread yourself too thin and give up in frustration.

If you stumble, if you get stuck, if you get frustrated, if you publish something with a typo or discover a glaring error after the fact – give yourself permission to be human. Adjust your plan if need be, fix what needs fixing if possible, step away from the keyboard, take a walk – do what you need to do clear your mind then dive back in and keep on going.